Election Time in the Rockies

There’s snow up in the high country, so it must be election time in Colorado. It’s an odd-year election, but there’s always something interesting on the ballot here. Voting has become very convenient in Colorado as well, although there’s no solid evidence that even the combination of interesting and convenient has done a lot to increase turnout. Anyway…

First there’s the race for mayor and part of the city council rotation. Local campaigns in my Denver suburb are actually pretty boring this year. The development questions are all about what will happen around the three light rail stations that will open next year. One looks to be a light industry hub; one higher-end apartments/condos, a hotel, restaurants and other retail; one has the local community college’s health care program and whatever builds on that.

The school district board election is more interesting. Two seats are up in the regular rotation. Colorado is a recall state, and for the other three seats, there’s a recall issue. I’ve written about this before, and maintain my previous position: course content is within the proper purview of the board under the Colorado constitution, but people who are dumb enough to take on the suburban AP history students and their parents over a college-prep course are probably too dumb to be on the board.

Colorado’s also a referendum state, and under the state constitution, there’s the notion of “excess” revenue that must be refunded unless there’s a vote of the people to allow the state to keep it. Newly legal recreational marijuana sales are taxed heavily. Sales have been good, generating excess revenue. The state legislature has referred a ballot item to the people [1] asking to keep that excess revenue to spend for specific purposes. In this case the money is fungible — not always true in state and local budgets — and the excess would simply free up some General Fund dollars that can be spent on anything. Still, tossing in some “it’s for the children” spending items doesn’t hurt.

Colorado’s an initiative state as well. There’s a local initiative on the ballot. During the last recession, the county commissioners broke long-standing promises and diverted some of the tax money that has always been earmarked for the library system for other uses. The initiative asks for a small property tax increase whose revenue would be dedicated to the libraries and immune from commission action in the future. I admit to being biased — I use library resources extensively, particularly the inter-library loan system, which provides me with access to the stacks at at least seven research universities and some smaller specialty schools.

Finally, Colorado is an almost-exclusively vote-by-mail state. Every registered voter gets a paper ballot in the mail [2]. Ours arrived last week. My wife and I sat at the kitchen table after supper one evening, debating the issues and marking the ballots. Checking the county clerk’s web site, I can tell that my ballot has been received and processed. Vote-by-mail is enormously popular here. Asked the question “Should Colorado keep its vote-by-mail system?” more than 75% of both Republicans and Democrats say yes [3]. No one locally believes that there’s fraud going on (although I regularly read East Coast pundits who claim it must be there and we’re just too dumb to find it).

What’s on your ballot, and how convenient will it be for you to vote?

[1] Control of the legislature is split, with the Democrats holding a 34-31 advantage in the House and the Republicans 18-17 in the Senate. Both chambers approved the ballot item.

[2] You can go to one of the (not many) voting centers in the state and cast your ballot in person if you like. There’s same-day registration, which also requires you to go to one of the voting centers.

[3] There’s nothing else that both sides agree on to that extent. Except possibly that Texans shouldn’t be allowed into the state. People are still upset about the Texan who bought property up in one of the high valleys and then shot some of his neighbor’s buffalo.

Michael is a systems analyst, with a taste for obscure applied math. He's interested in energy supplies, the urban/rural divide, regional political differences in the US, and map-like things. Bicycling, and fencing (with swords, that is) act as stress relief.

The neighbor raised them. It was a bad winter and everyone’s livestock was wandering in search of better forage. The Texan hired hunters who killed 32 buffalo, mostly pregnant cows, some of them on US Forest Service and BLM land. The carcasses were left to rot. Even if they had all been on the Texan’s land, under Colorado law — dating back to the 1880s — you can’t kill loose livestock.

Part of the problem was that the Texan got bad legal advice. He was an Austin IT millionaire, and used a Denver attorney who specialized in securities litigation and arbitration. Probably not the lawyer I would have chosen to consult on open-range statutes and case law.Report

Fencing laws are really interesting. In Virginia, and I gather in most states, the original laws on the books are Fencing Exclusion laws. That is, you need to fence the areas you *don’t* want livestock to graze. It seems counter intuitive on two counts: 1) Most farmers fence their properties to keep their cattle in areas where they can manage them – so it gives the appearance that they are responsible to fence their cattle, and 2) most people assume that cattle on their land are a nuisance, and therefore the cattle owner is responsible for damages – not so.

It gets all sort of complicated when you look at the sections pertaining to bulls and shared fences… but the primary law in VA (not including new laws in towns/suburbs) is that if you don’t want livestock eating your petunias, better build a fence.

I had a crash course in fencing laws trying to get the railroad to pay for half of the half-mile fence we needed to keep our sheep from wandering onto their tracks through 50-yr old decrepit fences. They eventually split the cost.Report

Surprise, surprise, the big parts of the SF Ballot this year deal with housing, housing, and more housing.

They are pretty basic props. The most interesting one was targeted at making sure landlords could not take units and turn them into short-term Air BnB rentals. Air BnB is dead set against this Prop. They took out ads which backfired in the most amazing way possible.

No memory issues – that concern or supposed concern was based on a misapprehension. In general, authors should go as big and bountiful with rights-cleared images as they can. It was the threat of a lawsuit (ill-founded, but potentially costly to defend all the same) that prompted the decision not only to go conservative, a policy that also respects the work of photographers and other artists, but to purge old images en masse, since going through all 11,000 posts and crediting or replacing image by image is obviously impractical. The only other practical alternative would have been to purge the posts themselves rather than preserve them in the archives.

The “Image Removed” image is provided by a plug-in that I wrote that automatically replaces broken image links (produced by deleting the image but not replacing the HTML that links to it). Old posts can be restored to their former glory, but have to be handled one by one as exceptional cases.

Policy is that even thumbnail images should be credited, but since there is actually an exception in the law for thumbnail images, we’re not as conscientious on them. There should be an image credit for the featured image on this post, too, to be a stickler.

At some point we’ll produce a document on image policy and how to get good, usable images, with some instructions for authors on using a nifty tool called “Image Inject” and on getting credited, rights-cleared images from other sources. Authors who ignore policy when they draft their posts will be featured in the weekly floggings.Report

Virginia does their full legislative elections the year before the Presidential ones, so everyone in the Old Dominion is up right now. I’m in an area with a Democratic lock. The one interesting race is for my city’s mayor (which is a council – city manager form of government, so it’s not that powerful a position). The 4 term incumbent was ousted in the Dem primary by a narrow margin, and the winner running in the general unopposed, but the incumbent has pushed for a write in campaign a la Murkowski.Report

I have been wanting to slap people, because the proponents of this initiative have been airing ads about how the law was designed so men could lurk in the women’s restrooms and leer at them.

It really wasn’t. It was designed to ensure that men got to use the men’s room and women’s the women’s room. It’s just some idiots are a little confused as to what constitutes ‘man’ and ‘woman’. (I really feel for people transitioning. It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t issue with the restrooms. Hence the ordinance that basically says ‘If you’re transitioning, you get to use the restroom of the gender you’re transitioning to’. Because there’d been some actual issues there.).Report

Texas has some constitutional amendments on the ballot, the first of which is pretty important (the one concerning highway funding). There’s also an amendment to remove the constitutional requirement that officials elected to statewide office live in Austin, which is good, because the fewer people we have moving here the better.Report

The provision was originally placed in the state’s constitution because the state is so damn big that communication and travel to and from the capital could take some time, but there are people who still think it’s important for legal reasons. That is, Travis County (Austin’s county) has legal structures in place to investigate and prosecute corruption by state officials (and Texas, while not Illinois, is a pretty corrupt place), and the worry is that corrupt state officials will just take up residence in counties without such structures, or worse, with prosecutors who are unwilling to prosecute for political or personal reasons.

I don’t really buy this, if for no other reason than that the Travis County folks aren’t particularly good about prosecuting corrupt officials anyway, but that’s the argument I’ve heard for not amending the constitution.Report

Re: footnote [3]: I’ll never forgive them for colonizing Creede. It’s a shame what they’ve done to the place, flying those damn flags and all.

The MJ tax refund was an interesting one to read about since the estimate for MJ tax revenue was above the actual amount collected ($67m projected, $66m collected) while total revenue projections were below actual collections by $270m. I can’t make head or tails of how they came to the conclusion that the $66m – and only $66m! – is subject to a refund initiative. (I’ll vote for the state to keep it.)

One other measure I need to read more about is the anti-fracking initiative. Haven’t quite figured out what’s at stake with that one yet.Report

One of the interesting things about being on the staff for the state legislature’s budget committee — for certain “take me out back of the building and beat me with a baseball bat because it will be less painful” values of interesting — was figuring out what was excess revenue that had to be refunded and the proper form of the refund.Report

During the last recession, the county commissioners broke long-standing promises and diverted some of the tax money that has always been earmarked for the library system for other uses. The initiative asks for a small property tax increase whose revenue would be dedicated to the libraries and immune from commission action in the future. I admit to being biased — I use library resources extensively, particularly the inter-library loan system, which provides me with access to the stacks at at least seven research universities and some smaller specialty schools.

“Why don’t you ask us to fund the things you paid for by stealing library funds?”

One summer I had to read a bunch of the state supreme court decisions in cases where counties had sued the state over this or that. I’m fairly sure that the court said the no-respect thing explicitly in at least one of them.Report

I do hope you know we’re all on tenterhooks for the results. And by “we” I mean, of course, Mark Thompson, Will Truman, and I since I don’t think anyone else is willing to admit that they are geeky vexillophiles.Report

Religious Institutions. Religious institutions may resume services subject to the following conditions, which apply to churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, interfaith centers, and any other space, including rented space, where religious or faith gatherings are held: 1. Indoor religious gatherings are limited to no more than ten people. 2. Outdoor religious gatherings of up to 250 people are allowed. Outdoor services may be held on any outdoor space the religious institution owns, rents, or reserves for use. 3. All attendees at either indoor or outdoor services must maintain appropriate social distancing of six feet and wear face masks or facial coverings at all times. 4. There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service. 5. Collection plates or receptacles may not be passed to or between attendees. 6. There should be no hand shaking or other physical contact between congregants before, during, or after religious services. Attendees shall not congregate with other attendees on the property where religious services are being held before or after services. Family members or those who live in the same household or who attend a service together in the same vehicle may be closer than six feet apart but shall remain at least six feet apart from any other persons or family groups. 7. Singing is permitted, but not recommended. If singing takes place, only the choir or religious leaders may sing. Any person singing without a mask or facial covering must maintain a 12-foot distance from other persons, including religious leaders, other singers, or the congregation. 8. Outdoor or drive-in services may be conducted with attendees remaining in their vehicles. If utilizing parking lots for either holding for religious services or for parking for services held elsewhere on the premises, religious institutions shall ensure there is adequate parking available. 9. All high touch areas, (including benches, chairs, etc.) must be cleaned and decontaminated after every service. 10. Religious institutions are encouraged to follow the guidelines issued by Governor Hogan.

“There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service,” the order says in a section delineating norms and restrictions on religious services.

The consumption of the consecrated species at Mass, at least by the celebrant, is an integral part of the Eucharistic rite. Rules prohibiting even the celebrating priest from receiving the Eucharist would ban the licit celebration of Mass by any priest.

CNA asked the Howard County public affairs office to comment on how the rule aligns with First Amendment religious freedom and free exercise rights.

Howard County spokesman Scott Peterson told CNA in a statement that "Howard County has not fully implemented Phase 1 of Reopening. We continue to do an incremental rollout based on health and safety guidelines, analysis of data and metrics specific to Howard County and in consultation with our local Health Department."

"With this said," Peterson added, "we continue to get stakeholder feedback in order to fully reopen to Phase 1."

The executive order also limits attendance at indoor worship spaces to 10 people or fewer, limits outdoor services to 250 socially-distanced people wearing masks, forbids the passing of collection plates, and bans handshakes and physical contact between worshippers.

In contrast to the 10-person limit for churches, establishments listed in the order that do not host religious services are permitted to operate at 50% capacity.

In the early days of the Coronavirus epidemic, there were hopes that the disease could be treated with a compound called hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). HCQ is a long-established inexpensive medicine that is widely used to treat malaria. It also has uses for treating rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. There had been some indications that HCQ could treat SARS virus infections by attacking the spike proteins that coronaviruses use to latch onto cells and inject their genetic material. Initial small-scale studies of the drug on COVID-19 patients indicated some positive effect (in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin). President Trump, in March, promoted HCQ as a game-changer and is apparently taking it as a prophylaxis after potentially being exposed by White House staff.

Initial claims of the efficacy of this therapy were a perfect illustration of why we base decisions on scientific studies and not anecdotes. By late March, Twitter was filled with stories of "my cousin's mother's former roommate was on death's door and took this therapy and miraculously recovered". But such stories, even assuming they are true, mean nothing. With COVID-19, we know that seriously ill people reach an inflection point where they either recover or die. If they died while taking the HCQ regimen, we don't hear from them because...they died. And if they recover without taking it, we don't hear from them because...they didn't take it. Our simian brains have evolved to think that correlation is causation. But it isn't. If I sacrificed a goat in every COVID-19 patient's room, some of them would recover just by chance. That doesn't mean we should start a massive holocaust of caprines.

However, even putting aside anecdotes, there were good reasons to believe the HCQ regimen might work. And given the seriousness of this disease and the desperation of those trying to save lives, it's understandable that doctors began using it for critically ill patients and scientists began researching its efficacy.

Why Trump became fixated on it is equally understandable. Trump has been looking for a quick fix to this crisis since Day One. Denial failed. Closing off (some) travel to China failed. A vaccine is months if not years away. So HCQ offered him what he wanted -- a way to fix this problem without the hard work, tough choices and sacrifice of stay-at-home orders, masks, isolation and quarantine. So eager were they to adopt the quick fix, the Administration made plans to distribute millions of doses of this unproven drug in lieu of taking more concrete steps to address the crisis.[efn_note]Although the claim that Trump stands to profit off HCQ sales does not appear to hold much water.[/efn_note]

This is also why certain fringe corners of the internet became fixated on it. There has arisen a subset of the COVID Truthers that I'm calling HCQ Truthers: people who believe that HCQ isn't just something that may save some lives but is, in fact, a miracle cure that it's only being held back so that...well, take your pick. So that Democrats can wreck the economy. So that Bill Gates can inject us with tracking devices. So that we can clear off the Social Security rolls. And this isn't just a US phenomenon nor is it all about Trump. Overseas friends tell me that COVID trutherism in general and HCQ trutherism in particular have arisen all over the Western World.

It's no accident that the HCQ Truthers seem to share a great deal of headspace with the anti-Vaxxers. It fills the same needs

In both cases, the idea was started by flawed studies. The initial studies out of China and France that indicated HCQ worked were heavily criticized for methodological errors (although note that neither claimed it was a miracle cure). Since then, larger studies have shown no effect.

HCQ trutherism offers an explanation for tragedy beyond the random cruelty of nature. Just as anti-vaxxers don't want to believe that sometimes autism just happens, HCQ Truthers don't want to believe that sometimes nature just releases awful epidemics on us. It's more comforting, in some ways, to think that bad happenings are all part of a plan by shadowy forces.

There is, however, another crazy side that doesn't get as much attention because their crazy is a bit more subtle. These are the people who have decided that, since Trump is touting the HCQ treatment, it must not work. It can not work. It can not be allowed to work. There is an undisguised glee when studies show that HCQ does not work and a willingness to blame HCQ shortages on Trump and only Trump.[efn_note]Not to mention the odd fish tank cleaner poisoning that has nothing to do with him.[/efn_note]

In between the two camps are everyone else: scientists, doctors and ordinary folk who just want to know whether this thing works or not, politics and conspiracy theories be damned. Well, last week, we got a big indication that it does not. A massive study out of the Lancet concluded that the HCQ regimen has no measurable positive effect. In fact, death rates were higher for those who took the regimen, likely due to heart arrhythmias induced by the drug.

So is the debate over? Can we move on from HCQ? Not quite.

First of all, the study is a retrospective study, looking backward at nearly 100,000 cases over the last four months. That's a massive sample that allows one to correct for potential confounding factors. But it's not a double-blind trial, so there may be certain biases that can not be avoided. In response to the publication, a group doing a controlled study unblinded some of their data (that is, they let an independent group look up who was getting the actual HCQ and who was getting a placebo). It did not show enough of a safety concern to warrant ending the study.

It's also worth noting that because this is an unproven therapy, it is usually being used on only the sickest patients (the odd President of the United States aside). It's possible earlier use of the drug, when the body is not already at war with itself, could help.

With those caveats in mind, however, this study at least makes it clear that HCQ is not the miracle cure some fringe corners of the internet are pretending it is. And it should make doctors hesitant in giving to people who already have heart issues.

As you can imagine, this has only fed the twin camps of derangement. The truther arguments tend to fall into the usual holes that truther theories do:

"How can this be a four-month study when we only learned about COVID in January!" The HCQ protocol started being used almost immediately because of previous research on coronaviruses.

"How come all of the sudden this safe medicine that people use all the time is dangerous?!" The side effects of HCQ have been well known for years and have always required consideration and management. They may be showing up more strongly here because it is being given to patients whose bodies are already under extreme stress. Also, azithromycin may amplify some of those side effects.

"They just hate Trump." Not everything is about Donald Trump. If it turned out that kissing Donald Trump's giant orange backside cured COVID, scientists would be the first ones telling people to line up and use chapstick.

The other camp's response has ranged from undisguised glee -- that is, joy at the idea that we won't be saving lives cheaply -- to bizarre claims that Trump should be charged with crimes for touting this unproven therapy.

(A perfect illustration of the dementia: former FDA Head Scott Gottlieb -- who has been a Godsend for objective analysis during the pandemic -- tweeted out the results of the RECOVERY unblinding yesterday morning and noted that it showed no increased safety risk. He was immediately dogpiled by one side insisting he was trying to conceal the miracle cure of HCQ and the other insisting he is a Trumpist doing the Orange Man's dirty work.)

In the end, the lunatics do not matter. Whether HCQ works or not, whether it is used or not, will be mostly determined by doctors and will mostly be based on the evidence we have in front of us. If HCQ fails -- and it's not looking good -- my only response will be massive disappointment. Had HCQ worked, it would have been a gift from the heavens. It is a well-known, well-studied drug that can be manufactured cheaply in bulk. Had it worked, we could have saved thousands of lives, prevented hundreds of thousands of long-term injuries and saved trillions of dollars. That it doesn't appear to work -- certainly not miraculously -- is not entirely unexpected but is also a tragedy.

{C1} The Christian Science Monitor looks at 1918 and how sports handled that pandemic, and the role it played in giving rise to college football.

"That's really what started the big boom of college football in the 1920s," said Jeremy Swick, historian at the College Football Hall of Fame. "People were ready. They were back from war. They wanted to play football again. There weren't as many restrictions about going out. You could enroll back in school pretty easily. You see a great level of talent come back into the atmosphere. There's new money. It started to get to the roar of the Roaring '20s and that's when you see the stadiums arm race. Who can build the biggest and baddest stadium?"

{C2} During times of rapid change, social science is supposed to be able to help lead the way or at least decipher what is going on. Or maybe not...

But while Willer, Van Bavel, and their colleagues were putting together their paper, another team of researchers put together their own, entirely opposite, call to arms: a plea, in the face of an avalanche of behavioral science research on COVID-19, for psychology researchers to have some humility. This paper—currently published online in draft format and seeding avid debates on social media—argues that much of psychological research is nowhere near the point of being ready to help in a crisis. Instead, it sketches out an “evidence readiness” framework to help people determine when the field will be.

{C3} There is a related story about AI - which is predisposed towards tracking slow change over time - is having trouble keeping up.

{C4} The Covid-19 does not bode well for higher education is not news. They may have a lot of difficulty opening up (and maybe shouldn't). An added wrinkle is kids taking a gap year, which is potentially a problem because those most able to pay may be least likely to attend.

{C5} People who can see the faults with abstinence only education fail to see how that logic (We shouldn't give guidance to people doing things we would rather they not do in the first place). Emily Oster argues that the extreme message of public health advocates to Just Stay Home is counterproductive.

When people are advised that one very difficult behavior is safe, and (implicitly or not) that everything else is risky, they may crack under the pressure, or throw up their hands. That is, if people think all activities (other than staying home) are equally risky, they figure they might as well do those that are more fun. If taking a walk at a six-foot distance from a friend puts me at very high risk, why not just have that friend and a bunch of others over for a barbecue? It’s more fun. This is an exaggeration, of course, but different activities carry very different risks, and conscientious civic leaders should actively help people choose among them.

{C6} A look at what canceling the football season will do to the little guys - non-power schools. Ironically, they may sustain less damage due to fewer financial obligations relying on the money that won't be coming in. Be that as it may, Fordham has disestablished its baseball program.

{C7} Bans on evictions and rental spikes could have the main effect of simply pushing out small investors, rather than protecting renters. In a more good-faith economy this would be less of an issue because landlords would work with tenants. Which some are, though I don't have too much faith about it being widespread.

{C8} Three cheers for Nick Saban. Football coaches are cultural leaders of a sort. One is about to become a senator in Alabama, even. What they do matters.

The American college experience for better or for worse revolves around the residency factor. We have turned college into a relatively safe place for young adults to the test the limits of freedom without suffering too many consequences. Better to miss a day of classes because you drank too much than to miss a day of an apprenticeship or job and get fired. College was cut short this semester because of COVID and colleges are freaking out about whether they can open up dorms in the fall. The dorms are big money makers and it is hard to justify huge tuition bucks for zoom lectures even for elite universities. Maybe especially for them. California State University announced that Fall 2020 is going to be largely online. My undergrad alma mater sent out an e-mail blast announcing their plan to reopen in the fall with "mostly" in person classes. The President admitted that the plan was a work in progress but it strikes me as a combination of common sense and extreme wishful thinking. The plan may include:

1. Staggered drop-off days to limit density as we return.

This sounds reasonable but only in a temporary way because eventually everyone will be back on campus, living in dorm rooms together, needing to use communal bathrooms and showers.

2. Students would be tested for COVID-19 on campus at least twice in the first 14 days.

There is nothing wrong with this as long as the testing is available. Our capacity for testing so far in this country has not been great.

3. Anyone experiencing symptoms would be tested immediately. Students who test positive would be cared for in a separate dormitory area where food would be brought to the room and where the student could still access classes remotely.

Nothing wrong here. Outbreaks of certain diseases are not unknown in the college setting. During my senior year, there was an outbreak of a rather nasty strain of gastroenteritis. Other universities have experienced meningitis outbreaks.

4. All students would take their temperature and report symptoms daily.

This one is also reasonable but is going to involve spying on students and coming up with a punishment mechanism. How will they make sure students are not lying?

5. We would also require that socializing be kept to a minimum in the beginning, with proper PPE (masks) and social distancing. As time went on, we would seek to open up more, and students could socialize and eat together in small groups.

I have no idea how they tend for this to happen and it sets of all my lawyer bells for carefully crafted language that attempts to answer a concern or question but also admits "we got nothing." Maybe today's students are more somber and sincere but you are going to have around 500 eighteen year olds who are away from their parents for the first time and another 1500 nineteen to twenty-one year olds who had their semester rudely interrupted and might now be reunited with boyfriends and girlfriends. Are they going to assign eating times for the dining hall and put up solo eating cubicles that get wiped down and disinfected after each use? Assign times to use laundry facilities in each dorm? Cancel the clubs? Cancel performances by the theatre, dance, and music departments?

I am sympathetic to my alma I love it but and realize that a lot of colleges and universities would take a real hit financially without residency. This includes universities with reasonable to very large endowments. Only the ones with hedge fund size endowments would not suffer but the last part of the plain sounds not fully thought out yet even if my college's current President admitted: "Life on campus will not look the same as it did pre-pandemic" The only way i see number 5 working is if requiring is read as "requiring."

Seems that the theory that Covid-19 can be spread by asymptomatic people has very shaky evidence in support of it. Turns out the case this assumption was made from was based on a single woman who infected 4 others. Researchers talked to the 4 patients, and they all said the patient 0 did not appear ill, but they could not speak to patient 0 at the time.

So they finally got to talk to her, and she said she was feeling ill, but powered through with the aid of modern pharmaceuticals.

Ten Second News

Today we couldn’t be happier to announce that Vox Media and New York Media are merging to create the leading independent modern media company. Our combined business will be called Vox Media and will serve hundreds of millions of audience members wherever they prefer to enjoy our work.

In a nation in turmoil, it's nice to have even a small bit of good news:

Representative Steve King of Iowa, the nine-term Republican with a history of racist comments who only recently became a party pariah, lost his bid for renomination early Wednesday, one of the biggest defeats of the 2020 primary season in any state.

In a five-way primary, Mr. King was defeated by Randy Feenstra, a state senator, who had the backing of mainstream state and national Republicans who found Mr. King an embarrassment and, crucially, a threat to a safe Republican seat if he were on the ballot in November.

The defeat was most likely the final political blow to one of the nation’s most divisive elected officials, whose insults of undocumented immigrants foretold the messaging of President Trump, and whose flirtations with extremism led him far from rural Iowa, to meetings with anti-Muslim crusaders in Europe and an endorsement of a Toronto mayoral candidate with neo-Nazi ties.

King, you may remember, was stripped of his committee assignments last year when he defended white supremacism. Two years ago, he almost lost his Congressional seat in the general. That is, a seat that Republicans have held since 1986, usually win by double digits and a district Trump carried by a whopping 27 points almost came within a point or two of voting in a Democrat. That's how repulsive King had gotten.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Enjoy retirement, Congressman. Oops. Sorry. In January, it will be former Congressman.

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From the Daily Mail: Deadliest city in America plans to disband its entire police force and fire 270 cops to deal with budget crunch

The deadliest city in America is disbanding its entire police force and firing 270 cops in an effort to deal with a massive budget crunch.

...

The police union says the force, which will not be unionized, is simply a union-busting move that is meant to get out of contracts with current employees. Any city officers that are hired to the county force will lose the benefits they had on the unionized force.

Oak Park police say they are investigating “suspicious circumstances” after two attorneys — including one who served as a hearing officer in several high-profile Chicago police misconduct cases — were found dead in their home in the western suburb Monday night.

Officers were called about 7:30 p.m. for a well-being check inside a home in the 500 block of Fair Oaks Avenue, near Chicago Avenue, and found the couple dead inside, Oak Park spokesman David Powers said in an emailed statement. Authorities later identified them as Thomas E. Johnson, 69, and Leslie Ann Jones, 67, husband and wife attorneys who worked in Chicago.

The preliminary report from an independent autopsy ordered by George Floyd's family says the 46 year old man's death was "caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain".

The independent examiners found that weight on the back, handcuffs and positioning were contributory factors because they impaired the ability of Floyd's diaphragm to function, according to the report.

Dr. Michael Baden and the University of Michigan Medical School's director of autopsy and forensic services, Dr. Allecia Wilson, handled the examination, according to family attorney Ben Crump.

Baden, who was New York's medical examiner in 1978 and 1979, had previously performed independent autopsies on Eric Garner, who was killed by a police officer in Staten Island, New York, in 2014 and Michael Brown, who was shot by officers in Ferguson, Missouri, that same year.

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Oddly, the video was dropped by an attorney friend the men, because he thought it would exonerate them. He assumed when people saw Aubrey turn and try to defend himself, everyone would see what they did: a dangerous animal needing to be put down.